Saikin Imouto BlahblahblahShort Synopsis: Our lead character gets to have is own little sister.
Japan…. whyyyyy? Why do you keep making these utterly horrid imouto-series? What is people’s fascination with having their own little sister that they can have sex with, which is something that they always end up implying? This one is especially bad, by the way. Where it’s normally just the sister who for some inexplicable reason fancies her brother, this time it’s going to be worse: the sister is actively forced, against her will, in order to have sex with her brother due to some incredibly stupid chastity belt. It’s the single worst premise for an sister-series that I’ve ever seen! And I guess that this episode did tell a bit about the etymology beind the word “sister”, and why it’s so ingraved in Japanese culture, but that still doesn’t really justify the incredible slew of these series that go to so many lengths for some hot brother-on-sister action. Oh yeah, they’re not REALLY siblings: we all know what’s being implied here. There is also no single excuse to why I had to watch this sister go to the toilet for SIX. FLIPPIN’ MINUTES!OP:Lazy. Badly sung,ED:Again really bad J-Pop, plus the chibi character is just not funny.Potential: 0%

Buddy ComplexShort Synopsis: Our lead character’s future self sends a cute girl to him to date and fight robots and stuff.
Here’s a surprise. Buddy Complex looks like this incredibly cheesy robot-series, and I already started to cringe when the creators somehow managed to wedge a school in there. However, as the episode went on, I noticed that on quite a few occasions the creators were actually using logic in order to advance their plots. You want to escape from this giant robot that’s attacking you? Just grab a bicycle and hide in narrow streets: that makes sense if you’re just a normal high school boy who can’t do anything else. Now, don’t get me wrong, the series remains really cheesy and it’s got no excuse of putting teenagers in the middle of armed conflict as the pilots of robots, however it is refreshing to see that it takes itself completely seriously: it’s got a story that it wants to tell. The cheese will be its biggest potential pitfall, because most of the characters are really hamming it up here.OP:Very, very cheesy again. I know that a basketball has to do with the story, but you should not look at it like that.ED:A decent song for once. Nothing special though. Again cheesy.Potential: 70%

Witch Craft WorksShort Synopsis: Our lead character is protected by a hot girl.
Well, so the first new series of the year… is completely vapid, shallow and boring. Everything about this episode was just taken from the hundreds of other school magic series that exist with nothing new whatsoever, and everything about this show just screamed that the creators were just bored when they made it. It’s another one of those fantasy series in which the completely useless male lead gets protected by the single most popular girl in school, who this time has her own fanclub of crazily obsessed people who use weird catchphrases. It’s another glaring example of how badly a big part of the anime industry is stuck in its own rut by completely retreading the same thing over and over and over again.OP:Even the vocalist sounds completely bored!ED:Trying way too hard to be cute.Potential: 0%

The first episode is surprisingly well produced. The story might be tired, but lots of work went into the animation layouts, backgrounds, and digital production. For what it’s worth, Tsutomu Mizushima and his team aren’t phoning this one in.

First, the action was interesting – the enemy witch using an army of fierce, armed combat rabbits was amusingly off the wall.

The female witch protecting the “wimpy boy” for “no reason.” Well, it’s episode one, and obviously she has a reason beyond infatuation. Considering she refers to the boy as “her princess” somewhat suggests there’s something going on. (For all I know at this stage, the boy could actually be a reincarnated woman with ties to her.)

It doesn’t seem to be a harem show yet: the girl has no apparent love interest in the guy. The guy is scared stiff. The other girls are apparently out to destroy him.

The lead female character is a somewhat different take on the emotionless type (less passive and doll like such are are usually portrayed as) being popular, obsessed with her mission, and describing herself as “made of fire” and thus immune to pain and injury.

Might turn out to be drek if it turns into a harem in the next episode or so, which is a risk given the final scene; but I was pleasantly surprised compared to what the character art had led me to think.

The industry is indeed out of ideas. But the same is true of Hollywood, which keeps dishing us rehash after rehash or just completely stupid movies that exist only to show off 3D effects, like The Hobbit Part 2. However, if one considers how few really good anime there are compared to the total industry turnover, Perhaps we are just living through a bad time and sooner or later something really good will come along… I hope…

I wouldn’t say the anime industry is running out of idea’s. In manga form there are some truly interesting idea’s. It’s just that like anything, why take a risk of animating something new when you can animate a low risk story that’s guaranteed for sales?

Nope. Overarching specifications come from the producers (most projects are adaptations anyway, so it isn’t like there’s much room for original creation), while the director and lead writer have the most creative control.

>Just grab a bicycle and hide in narrow streets: that makes sense if you’re just a normal high school boy who can’t do anything else.

No, that does not make any sense.
With such a large caliber (it creates craters 1m deep on the floor!) the mecha could easily destroy a large part of the roofs, creating a rain of debris that would have either killed or severely hurt the male lead, stopping his escape.

tl;dr that part works only if we assume the enemy is both dumb and the worst mecha pilot of the whole world (well, he looks kind of dumb so that part is ok, at least).
But, well, Buddy Complex is obviously devoid of any realism or care whatsoever (enemy pilot accessing an unknown database after 5s of being in the past? Wow, how did he find it? And how did he access the internet to retrieve the infomation? Free wifi from a nerby mcdonalds?) so the escape scene is the last of its problems… but saying it shows how BC takes itself seriously… PLS.

If it would there wouldn’t have been such a stupid chase scene (rewatch it, see how the mecha pilot always strikes behind the male lead, even if it makes no sense to hit behind instead of ahead, blocking the path).

Well, speaking of cliches, why does the Fire Witch looks like she has got no human feelings at all? Ok, she is a witch, but the Tower Witch with cat’s ears acts pretty normal, feelingwise. Like, doesn’t the Fire Witch realize she is putting Norakami in an extremely awkward situation at school or that he is being beaten up by colleagues because of her attention? I mean, it’s okay protecting him from witches, but not from bullies? Also, her comment when she is stabbed at the end of the first episode is appalling: she is so servile towards him that she doesn’t understand why he is worried about her being skewered? Come on! That’s having main characters acting like the worse samurai cliche ever!!! I expect this will change along the story, but her emotionless behavior is really silly. That only works on Ayanami Rei (my all time favorite poker-faced female character, of course)because she’s a clone.

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;(

(Sunday, Aug 2. 2015 09:47 PM)

@Masky: Are you talking about me?
Because if you are, you completely misread all I wrote…
But if that’s the case I don’t feel like explaining myself considering you probably don’t want to listen anyway…

Masky

(Sunday, Aug 2. 2015 02:09 PM)

Geez, people really make odd excuses when defending stuff they like ._.
…I feel like thats probably hypocritical comment coming from me since I’ve probably done that too, but I think I usually go with attitude of “Hey, you’d probably not like it anyway, but I think you are wrong about that thing” xD

Emma

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 09:47 PM)

@Aidan: I would recommend downloading it rather than browser-playing it as my browser kept crashing when I tried to.
Its quite short but it gives a great teaser and introduction to the game, that gets me excited for it.

Emma

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 09:45 PM)

@Aidan: Mangagamer have released the demo for kara no shoujo 2, they’ve also confirmed a release for Autumn. Its probably better to call this demo more of a prologue/compliment to the game with content exclusive to it.
Demo/prologue here: http://mangagamer.org/kns2/

AidanAK47

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 02:14 PM)

@invicableGod, Yep that comment was spam. Should have got rid of it first time I saw it.

Wicked

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 01:10 AM)

well, this place changed a lot. Gotta say, I’m not a fan of how they adapted GATE into an anime. It feels too decompressed. Manga did a better job at keeping the tension taut

;(

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 01:08 AM)

Also I am not the blog, I’m just a poster… I really hope you have enough sense to tell the difference…

;(

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 01:07 AM)

@Emo: you’re saying all that like that doesn’t fit your description to a T. Kinda sad actually…
Well I guess now at least I gave you one more thing to get angry about so your day seems just a bit more active than your last.

;(

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 01:03 AM)

I don’t think people are really expected to read it from the start anymore. I mean that’s probably why it stays popular in Japan considering people would have to be in their 20s at least to keep up from the start without reading hundreds of chapters just to keep up.

;(

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 01:00 AM)

Well admittly comics don’t seem to be that easy to follow (don’t actually read comics despite liking a lot of DC and marvel media), but anyway it’s not like the other long-running shounens in terms of continuity and more like the long-running comedies like say Kochikoma.

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